All oceangoing and inland ships and vessels will come on a single online platform through registration to emerge as a formal economic sector eligible for loans, insurance and other facilities.
The government is going to develop a national online database of all such unregistered ships and boats under the scheme that is also expected to boost revenues, officials said.
The Department of Shipping has come up with a two-and-a-half-year-long project titled 'National Ships & Mechanized Boats Database Management and Capacity Building Project' under which an interactive database will be developed for all the ships and boats plying all over the country.
The total cost of the project will be around Tk 409.39 million. It is expected to be completed by December 2019, they informed.
Bangladesh, a country of 144 thousand square kilometres, has around 3,865 kilometres of waterways during dry season and 5,968 kms during monsoon.
Despite being a maritime country with one of the largest inland waterways in the world, there are currently no statistics of how many boats or vessels are operating in inland or coastal waterways.
According to the figures of the Department of Shipping, a total of 10,296 vessels are registered under the Merchant Shipping Ordinance 1983 while a total of 12,433 vessels are registered under the Inland Shipping Ordinance of 1976.
However, most of the vessels plying across the country are unregistered, and the total number of such unregistered water transports might be more than double the number of registered ones, according to the government's Department of Shipping.
In this context, authorities observed that the government is losing a huge amount of revenue as such a large portion of vessels and boats remained out of official accounts.
"However, if all the ships and boats are brought under registration, the government will receive additional revenues in the form of registration fee, survey fee, VAT and income tax," said a high official of the Ministry of Shipping.
"At the same time, vessel and boat owners will get registration or survey certificate which will legalize their ownership," he added.
Officials informed that once the vessel owners get registered, they will also be eligible to get mortgage loans and insurance facility, technical support and repair facilities from the government.
Earlier, a pilot project titled 'Preparation, development and management of database for small mechanized boats plying inland waterways' was implemented by the Ministry of Shipping, under which a survey of mechanized boats under 20 HP was conducted in six southern districts: Shariatpur, Madaripur, Gopalganj, Barisal, Patuakhali and Bhola.
The pilot project collected data on 21,000 mechanized boats and developed a web database on the study area.
The latest project will, however, cover all the 64 districts and will record the technical and general data of all the ships and boats across the country save the data of vessels collected under the aforesaid scheme.
Shipping Ministry officials observed that apart from increased revenue, developing a comprehensive maritime database will help in establishing an appropriate maritime safety regime and minimizing maritime accidents in the country.
Uncounted boats are a major threat to inland water safety as most of the operators and crew members are untrained and not acquainted with the relevant rules and regulations, the ministry officials observed.
As there are no exact statistics of boats and inland vessels, it is very difficult to undertake a proper and justified plan or programme to establish a safety regime, they also opined.
The maritime-safety regime in Bangladesh is currently regulated under the Merchant Shipping Ordinance 1983 and the Inland Shipping Ordinance 1976.
However, authorities said these laws need necessary updating due to various changes in socioeconomic aspects over the decades, new developments in shipping technology and new requirements of marine safety and introduction of many international conventions in maritime field.
"As such, maritime legal framework will also be developed in the light of national requirements and international conventions," a high official the MoS told the FE.
Each year, Bangladesh witnesses numerous maritime accidents-faulty design and defective construction of vessels have widely been attributed as one of major causes of such mishaps.
In this context, the project is also set to procure modern software to improve the assessment process of the construction design of vessels, authorities concerned informed.
The scheme will also work to increase the skill level of the maritime crew while also facilitating the monitoring of vessels' movements.
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